Russian Letters and Pronunciation

Russian (Cyrillic) script is derived from the Greek script and has 33 letters. Some letters look exactly like Latin ones.
In most cases Russian words are pronounced as they are written. However, sometimes different letters or combinations of letters sound the same. And one letter may have different sounds. Phonetic transcription of Russian words shall help beginners to pronounce the words correctly.

Here there is an obvious difference between spelling and pronunciation: unstressed “o” has a pronounced very much like “a”, but shorter.

Russian Consonants

Most consonants can be hard or soft (palatalized). The softness is marked by the letters that follow the consonant.Soft vowels (я, ё, ю, и, е) and the soft sign (ь) soften preceding consonants. Compare the differences in the pronunciation of the following consonants, first hard and then soft.

Hard consonants

Soft (palatalized) consonants

масло – más-la – butter

мясо – mya-sa – meat

мост – most – bridge

мёрзнуть – myór-znoot – freeze

рука – roo-ká – arm

рюмка – ryóom-ka – small wineglass

быть – bit – to be

бить – bit – beat/hit

каратэ – ka-ra-té – karate

телефон – tee-lee-fón – telephone

город – gó-rat– town/city

лошадь – ló-shat – horse

Always hard are ж, ш, ц
Always soft are ч, щ

In Russian there are voiced and voiceless consonants. Most of them come in pairs:

Voiced

Voiceless

б

п

в

ф

г

к

д

т

ж

ш

з

с

Voiced consonants are pronounced voiceless:

in the final position

if followed by a voiceless consonant

Example:

Voiced

Voiceless

дружба – dróosh-ba – friendship

хлеб – chlyep – bread

думать – dóo-mat – to think

идти – ittí – to go/ to come

Always voiced are л, м, н, р, йAlways voiceless are х, ч, ц, щ

Word stress in Russian

There are no stress rules in Russian. Any syllable of the word can be stressed. In transcriptions, an accent mark indicates the stressed vowels. It is important to learn the place of the stress when learning a new word.